Searching for a spine

The powerful are acting like weasels

For nearly 20 years I wrote opinions for a mid-sized newspaper, The Day of New London, Conn. Behind the newspaper, directly across the Thames River, was the manufacturing complex of General Dynamic’s Electric Boat, one of just two American submarine builders.

In the early 1990s when America’s Cold War battle with the Soviet Union was clearly over, many in the area credited - you guessed it - submarines. Submarines, bristling with nuclear weapons, stealthy and hard to detect, proved so formidable that the former USSR had no choice but to submit. I heard this from workers, journalists and Navy officers alike.

My brilliant Jesuit friend, Bernard Bush, found this to be a too-convenient rationalization of a bloated military budget. What did he think ended the Cold War? “Prayer,” he said simply. If he was going to speculate on something nobody could prove, he preferred to believe that prayers for peace had a powerful role.

I, too, believe in the power of prayer, so I would like to think that Bernie was right. We could use prayer right about now.

This has been an awful week with a Minneapolis woman, Renee Good, gunned down by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who stepped out of the way as she turned her extremely slow-moving car away from him. He shot her three times, killing her instantly. That’s bad enough, but what followed was, in its way, just as brutal. Government officials, from the President on down, spouted personal attacks and lies, saying Good was running over agents and was a “domestic terrorist.” Their conclusion? The killing was HER fault. And the answer: To send hundreds MORE agents to swarm Minneapolis.

Photo by Jack Skinner on Unsplash

This came after a three-week period in which Trump ordered bombing raids in rural Nigeria, in Somalia, and captured the leader of Venezuela and his wife while declaring that the country is now ours, after which he threatened military action against Greenland, Columbia, Mexico, Iran and Cuba.

I am left with the overwhelming urge to hide under my bed.

I have never felt more sheltered, here on our farm, far from agents dressed in black searching any neighborhoods near us. I have felt the sweet peace in this rural corner, where nothing is heard when I walk the dogs before going to bed but owls hooting at one another in nocturnal dialogue.

However, reading multiple newspapers a day - a habit ever since my first reporting job more than 40 years ago - keeps me tethered to the outside world. My worry about the country’s direction abates temporarily during long walks.

“Solvitur Ambulando” says a sign above my desk; Latin for “it is solved by walking.”

During walks these are the few answers that come to me: Help your neighbors. Give to the right causes. Write letters in protest. Show up to marches. Do everything you can think of to throw sand in the gears of the churning machine of injustice currently operating out of the federal government.

Pundits say that real change may come in the midterm elections, but those are in November, 10 months away, and a lot of damage will be done in the meantime.

I can attend all the “No Kings” protests possible, but what really needs to happen is this: The 535 members of Congress need to stand up. The vast majority of Democratic members are making themselves heard; a tiny fraction of the Republicans who control Congress have as well. But most of these sidestep questions, duck reporters, equivocate, avoid, evade or loudly support the president and his minions. They need to find a conscience, if they have one.

If my friend Bernie was right and prayer is more powerful than humanity’s bristling weapons, if prayer can change the trajectory of history, then my prayer is this: May we all fight against injustice, but most of all, may the limpid majority in government find their spines.